Clause · Native Title & First Nations Legal Work
Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) clause for project, commission and publication contracts
Contract clause that protects ICIP beyond copyright: acknowledges the community as custodian, limits use to the consented purpose, requires new consent for new uses, protects secret and sacred material, sets attribution and benefit sharing, and survives the contract.
- Kind
- Clause. Wording to drop into a longer document.
- Where it applies
- Australia
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 18 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 18 October 2026 against the 3 authorities it cites, for Australia.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use in commissions, publishing, film, design, museum, tourism, research and infrastructure contracts that use First Nations stories, designs, language, knowledge, images or performances. Use it whether you act for the First Nations party or the commissioning party, and settle the schedule with the Traditional Owners or community authority, not for them.
How AI may be used
AI may adapt the clause to the contract’s defined terms and extract the agreed permitted uses into the schedule; the lawyer settles every term with the community’s authorised representatives, and nothing cultural is described in the schedule without their consent.
AI may
- Align the clause with the contract’s definitions, licence, termination and dispute clauses and list inconsistencies
- Transfer the permitted uses, attribution wording and payments agreed in writing by the community into the schedule exactly as agreed
- Check the rest of the contract for licences, assignments, AI-training or archiving rights that would override this clause
AI must not
- Must not describe, summarise or interpret the cultural material, its meaning or its restrictions; the community decides what is written
- Must not identify who holds cultural authority or who must consent; that comes from the community’s own processes
- Must not be given secret, sacred or restricted material, or images of deceased people, for any purpose
The lawyer checks
- The people giving consent have authority under the community’s own processes, and the consent is recorded in writing for the stated purpose only
- No other clause (licence, assignment, moral rights consent, AI training, archiving) grants wider rights than the ICIP schedule permits
- Attribution wording, cultural warnings and benefit sharing in the schedule are the community’s own words
- The clause survives termination and binds sublicensees and assignees
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Native Title & First Nations Legal Work
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- Section 29 future act notice: diary and response guide for native title parties and grantee parties (Native Title Act 1993 ss 29 to 35)
- Cultural heritage duty of care assessment for a project: checklist and record (Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 (Qld) s 23 and the gazetted guidelines)
- Application to register an Indigenous Land Use Agreement: completion guide
- Objection to inclusion of the expedited procedure statement: lodgement guide
- Claim group authorisation meeting: notice, agenda and record of decisions (Native Title Act 1993 ss 251B, 251BA, 62C and 66B)
- Section 31 (right to negotiate) agreement: heads of terms
- PBC native title decision: consultation and consent record and reg 9 certificate checklist
- Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) and data sovereignty protocol for AI use
All precedents for Native Title & First Nations Legal Work · Tasks and AI use in this area